Art, craft, projects and life with Gillian Cooper...
Artist, Tutor, Writer and Mother

Monday, 1 December 2014

Out & About: Lakes and Dales

Derwent Water

Last week the
children had three teacher training days off school (those teachers must need a
lot of training!). So we decided to make
the most of them and headed off down to the Lake District/ Yorkshire Dales for
a few days. We stayed in a lovely
cottage at the delightfully named Unthank.
There was a gallery right besides us – the UpFront Gallery. Unfortunately we were never there whilst it
was open, but the work looked good through the windows.

CastleRigg Stone Circle

We had a lovely time
visiting lots of the tourist sites around Keswick, which of course included a
visit to the Pencil Shop! We had fun
trying out our purchases in the evening and I managed to get the kids enthused
too.

Trying out our new purchases

Over on the
Yorkshire side, we were introduced to a fantastic cheese shop just outside
Settle (thanks Louise!) and also had a great visit to Farfield Mill. We were really enchanted by some of the work
on display. The Bound Together group who
made books and other pieces of mixed media art are incredibly talented,
creating beautiful, fragile looking objets d’art. The kids loved Tania Sneesby’s fairytale interpretations
in fabric. In fact, we loved them
too. They were deceptively simple. Of course, I didn’t do the sensible thing and
take photos!

Derwent Water from the hills above Ashness Bridge

Part of the reason
for the visit to Farfield Mill is really, really thrilling as I’m going to have
a solo exhibition there next year from 21 March to 10 May. It was exciting to see the space and to start
thinking about where the work is going to go (and what other work I want to
make).

Sunset from the Pencil Museum car park!

As well as this
exhibition, I have a number of other things that will be going on over the next
few months (more info when things are firmed up enough to share), so I’m going
to be very busy. I think the kids are
going to be eating a lot of baked beans unless someone can come up with some
super fast meal suggestions!

5 comments:

FIRST - While you eat breakfast or lunchCook enough pasta for family... al dente is better than too soft.Drain the pasta, put in an oven proof dish.

Go back to work

SECOND - while the kettle boils for a cup of tea. Open and drain 1 or 2 tins tuna pour into pasta dish

Go back to work

THIRD - when you go to get a biscuit or swap the washing into the tumble dryer. Open and empty 1 tin cream of chicken soup into pasta/tuna dish.

Go back to work

FOURTH - while the kettle boils for a cup of tea. pour in a reasonable amount of frozen peas or sweet corn (or similar leftover veg)and stir in.

Go back to work

FIFTH - After you have been to the loo. Stir together pasta tuna, veg and soup. Grate favourite cheese that melts. Cover top of mixture with grated cheese.Shove in the oven.

Set timer to Bake on your favourite temperature. ;-) 180 or so for 30-40 minutes and to finish when it is meant to be dinner time. Check before end just in case the cheese is getting too done. If you are in a rush, you can get by with 25-35 min. But it depends on how frozen the frozen veg has made it.

Of course you can do it all at once early in the day if that fits your schedule. and then have the baking finish to set right on the table.

Alternative: if you have a little more time at the first stage, brown mince and use instead of tuna. Use Cream of mushroom soup instead of Cream of Chicken.If you have bread crumbs, they can go on with the cheese.

another alternative: browned mince and cream of tomato soup. But it is better to serve the veg along side instead of baked in for this one. I like to mix a bit of cheese in the mixture for this one.Have fun!Sandy